Saturday, November 03, 2012

Republicans attack anyone or anything that disagrees with them. The attempt
to politicize the Congressional Research Service is the latest example:

Ideology Over Reality, by Andrew Rosenthal, Editorial, NY Times: In a brazen
example of putting ideology ahead of reality, Senate Republicans seem to have
pressured the Congressional Research Service to
withdraw a report debunking conservative economic orthodoxy. Cutting tax
rates at the top appears “to have little or no relation to the size of the
economic pie,” the report said. “However, the top tax rate reductions appear to
be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the
income distribution.” So charging the rich lower tax rates doesn’t promote
economic growth; it merely increases economic inequality.

The CRS is a highly respected, independent agency that prepares reports for
members of Congress and routinely issues findings that disappoint or even
irritate their clients, who usually just grin and bear it, or at least bear it.
But Congressional Republicans seem to think that the CRS should function like
Pravda. In recent months, Republicans have been on a paranoid tear. They
attacked the private and equally authoritative Tax Policy Center because it
bothered to analyze Mitt Romney’s tax plan and found that it’s pretty much
impossible to cut taxes by 20 percent without increasing the deficit. And they
claimed there was a conspiracy at the Bureau of Labor Statistics when it
reported last month that the unemployment rate had dipped below 8 percent. ...

The attacks on the Fed have also been harmful, and, of course, it doesn't end
there. Republicans attack academic research whenever it doesn't agree with them,
e.g. the attempt to portray global warming research as manufactured to support
ideological beliefs rather than the science that it is. This behavior undermines our ability to provide
fact-based, independent assessments and research on important issues. All that
matters to Republicans is their short-run political interests, there's little thought or
concern about the longer-run harm their actions cause (their approach to global warming is a good example of this behavior, both in terms of the climate risks and the attempt to undermine academic research/researchers). There's little sense of obligation to the social
good, little worry about harming important institutions, only
their narrow, short-run, self-interest matters. Even when they proclaim long-run
interests -- "what about the future of our children?!" -- it is really about the
narrow, powerful interests in control of the party (in this case, it's an
attempt to use fear about the future to get support for cuts to social programs
now, which in turn support tax cuts for the wealthy, but see here on "the myth of the exploding safety net"). And of course, there are
also attacks on individuals if they say the wrong thing (even children can come
under attack).

Paul Krugman adds:

The Ultimate Zombie Idea: Zombie ideas — a phrase I originally saw in the
context of myths about Canadian health care — are policy ideas that keep being
killed by evidence, but nonetheless shamble relentlessly forward, essentially
because they suit a political agenda.

The
controversy over the withdrawal by the Congressional Research Service of a
report showing no connection between tax cuts for the rich and economic growth
is a reminder that in U.S. politics, at least, the tax cuts/growth notion is the
ultimate zombie idea.

I mean, when the CRS report first came out I didn’t write about it because it
was basically old news... Nobody has ever been able to find clear evidence of a
link between high-end tax cuts and growth. ...

And the tax-cut faithful have delivered one forecasting debacle after another.
I’m old enough to remember not just the predictions that the Bush tax cuts would
unleash a huge economic boom, but the claims that Clinton’s 1993 tax hike would
cause a deep depression.

Yet the tax-cut dogma remains politically intact, and it is at the core of
Romney’s alleged plan for recovery.

There is, of course, no mystery here: just ask who benefits from the dogma that
ever-lower taxes on the wealthy are just what we need, and you understand why
there is always plenty of money for both economists and politicians who promote
the dogma.

But it’s kind of sad to realize that our public discourse is so obviously,
nakedly corrupt.

It's also kind of sad that political polarization and the quest for power is doing so much harm to our ability to provide fact-based, reliable, politically unbiased information to the public. People don't know who they can trust anymore, and the deliberate harm that Republicans have caused is a big part of the reason why.

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The Long-Run Harm of 'Putting Ideology Ahead of Reality'

Republicans attack anyone or anything that disagrees with them. The attempt
to politicize the Congressional Research Service is the latest example:

Ideology Over Reality, by Andrew Rosenthal, Editorial, NY Times: In a brazen
example of putting ideology ahead of reality, Senate Republicans seem to have
pressured the Congressional Research Service to
withdraw a report debunking conservative economic orthodoxy. Cutting tax
rates at the top appears “to have little or no relation to the size of the
economic pie,” the report said. “However, the top tax rate reductions appear to
be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the
income distribution.” So charging the rich lower tax rates doesn’t promote
economic growth; it merely increases economic inequality.

The CRS is a highly respected, independent agency that prepares reports for
members of Congress and routinely issues findings that disappoint or even
irritate their clients, who usually just grin and bear it, or at least bear it.
But Congressional Republicans seem to think that the CRS should function like
Pravda. In recent months, Republicans have been on a paranoid tear. They
attacked the private and equally authoritative Tax Policy Center because it
bothered to analyze Mitt Romney’s tax plan and found that it’s pretty much
impossible to cut taxes by 20 percent without increasing the deficit. And they
claimed there was a conspiracy at the Bureau of Labor Statistics when it
reported last month that the unemployment rate had dipped below 8 percent. ...

The attacks on the Fed have also been harmful, and, of course, it doesn't end
there. Republicans attack academic research whenever it doesn't agree with them,
e.g. the attempt to portray global warming research as manufactured to support
ideological beliefs rather than the science that it is. This behavior undermines our ability to provide
fact-based, independent assessments and research on important issues. All that
matters to Republicans is their short-run political interests, there's little thought or
concern about the longer-run harm their actions cause (their approach to global warming is a good example of this behavior, both in terms of the climate risks and the attempt to undermine academic research/researchers). There's little sense of obligation to the social
good, little worry about harming important institutions, only
their narrow, short-run, self-interest matters. Even when they proclaim long-run
interests -- "what about the future of our children?!" -- it is really about the
narrow, powerful interests in control of the party (in this case, it's an
attempt to use fear about the future to get support for cuts to social programs
now, which in turn support tax cuts for the wealthy, but see here on "the myth of the exploding safety net"). And of course, there are
also attacks on individuals if they say the wrong thing (even children can come
under attack).

Paul Krugman adds:

The Ultimate Zombie Idea: Zombie ideas — a phrase I originally saw in the
context of myths about Canadian health care — are policy ideas that keep being
killed by evidence, but nonetheless shamble relentlessly forward, essentially
because they suit a political agenda.

The
controversy over the withdrawal by the Congressional Research Service of a
report showing no connection between tax cuts for the rich and economic growth
is a reminder that in U.S. politics, at least, the tax cuts/growth notion is the
ultimate zombie idea.

I mean, when the CRS report first came out I didn’t write about it because it
was basically old news... Nobody has ever been able to find clear evidence of a
link between high-end tax cuts and growth. ...

And the tax-cut faithful have delivered one forecasting debacle after another.
I’m old enough to remember not just the predictions that the Bush tax cuts would
unleash a huge economic boom, but the claims that Clinton’s 1993 tax hike would
cause a deep depression.

Yet the tax-cut dogma remains politically intact, and it is at the core of
Romney’s alleged plan for recovery.

There is, of course, no mystery here: just ask who benefits from the dogma that
ever-lower taxes on the wealthy are just what we need, and you understand why
there is always plenty of money for both economists and politicians who promote
the dogma.

But it’s kind of sad to realize that our public discourse is so obviously,
nakedly corrupt.

It's also kind of sad that political polarization and the quest for power is doing so much harm to our ability to provide fact-based, reliable, politically unbiased information to the public. People don't know who they can trust anymore, and the deliberate harm that Republicans have caused is a big part of the reason why.